Fallout
by zennie
Summary: Part of the 'Variations on a Theme' series. Postep for Redrum
1. Chapter 1

**Fallout**

Post-ep for _Redrum_  
Catherine and Sara have some things to work out.

Part of the 'Variations on a Theme' series. I seem to keep writing the same story, over and over again, and this is one variation.

**xxx **

"_I didn't have a choice."  
Sara reacts, her eyes narrowing in disbelief, but Nick speaks up first._  
"_We trust you with our lives, Catherine, you could have trusted us with this."  
Catherine meets Warrick's eyes, and sees her answer there, the loss of his support a blow. She looks down at the table, and then up, desperately._  
"_Sara?"_  
"_If I have something to say to you, Catherine, I'm going to say it in private."_

The hallway lights barely illuminate the interior of the lab, and the woman sitting there, her back to the door. She's starting out the glass walls, at the janitor mopping the floor, but really, she's staring at nothing at all.

"So what do you have to say to me?" Catherine asks from the doorway, reluctant to enter the stillness that surrounds the other woman.

She doesn't stir, but she answers nonetheless. "I said 'If I have something to say to you'."

"So you don't have anything to say?" When Sara doesn't answer, the blonde woman tries, in vain she knows, to defend her actions. "I didn't have a choice, the undersheriff…"

Even though her voice is barely above a whisper, it cuts through Catherine's words clearly, cruelly, "Everyone has a choice."

Catherine leans her head against the doorframe and waits in the darkness and silence, but the object of her attention makes no further movement or conversation. Eventually, the older woman, who is never known for her patience, gives up trying to wait out the slow simmering anger, and when she goes, the other woman stays, lost in the stillness, trying to silence the chaos in her head.


	2. Chapter 2

**Interlude **

He's a weird one, she gives him that; she just listens as he plays the case out, like she wasn't there too, and she only pipes up to remind him he's talking like he's the perp, not the investigator, not the victim. It's creepy, she admits, but it's been a long day and he's cute for all his weird creepiness. He's bashful around her as well, and it's a welcome change from the cocky, entirely-too-full-of-themselves guys she's met and dated lately. She flashes him a smile and he blushes and looks down at the table and she suddenly realizes who he reminds her of: Sara. Drive, intelligence, modesty, and crap for social graces. Sara who she left sitting alone at the lab, Sara who will never forgive her for a million sins, real or imagined. To distract herself from thoughts of Sara, she leans forward, giving him a clear view, and before he can even lift his eyes from her chest, she's kissing him, losing herself in the sensation, in the vain hope that it will quiet her restless thoughts.

**Part 2**

The music is loud and distracting; it seems everything around her needs to function as a distraction. She deliberately avoids thinking about charcoal brown eyes and words of accusation, and instead sings along to some song Lindsey likes. At least until she pulls into her driveway, stopping her SUV beside an identical dark-blue company truck.

"What are you doing here?" she asks as she gets out of her car, addressing the figure sitting on her stoop.

"I figured out what I wanted to say." There's a quiet tone of resignation to the brunette's voice, like she's been waiting a while, like she knows what's coming. "Where have you been?" she asks.

"Dinner."

"Dinner? With…?"

"Keppler."

"For five hours?" It is not a question, not really. She's an investigator, not an idiot. She's already connected the dots, long before now. Now she's just looking for confirmation. "You slept with him, didn't you?"

Catherine doesn't answer the question posed; instead, she asks a question of her own. "What was in the box from Grissom?" Sara at least has the decency to look embarrassed, and glance away from Catherine's eyes, but she doesn't say anything. After the pause, Catherine continues the conversation since Sara isn't volunteering anything, "You broke up with me, remember?"

"It was a mutual decision." The party line, the one they both adopt, the one they both know is a line, and a lie, the one Catherine is no longer willing to pretend to accept.

"Bullshit." Her single word is eloquent, for it addresses all manner of lies and illusions they've built up, agreed to, in the interests of peace. The peace is, apparently, over.

"It wasn't working out. You knew it, I knew it."

Catherine grants her that, but nothing else. "I was willing to work on it." She states the simple truth they both know, the simple, excruciatingly painful truth that she never really recovered from. Sara had walked away from her outstretched hand, and for what? It hurts her, physically hurts her, to even speak his name. "But you, you ran after the dream of a relationship with Grissom. How's that working out for you?" That last question is barbed, as harsh as Catherine had intended it, and she feels just a small thrill when she sees Sara wince.

"Fuck you."

She expects Sara's hostility, so she meets it with a deliberately blasé tone. "Sorry, I'm all done for the night."

Sara's lips contract into a hard line, and she shakes her head, eyes closed and hands clenched into fists. Catherine can't tell if she's angry or hurt, but she knows she crossed a line. Sara lets out a long, shaky breath and opens her eyes, now shaking her head sadly, in resignation. She brushes past Catherine roughly as she heads to her car, and Catherine feels a sliver of remorse. "Wait, what did you want to tell me?"

"It doesn't matter."


	3. Chapter 3

**Interlude **

Inside her home, Catherine heads straight for her small but well-stocked bar; scotch on the rocks, just like she had as an after-dinner cocktail. Sliding off her shoes, she sinks into the couch, hearing Sara's words yet again: "It wasn't working out." And it hadn't been. Catherine had had too many relationships ended by infidelity and heartbreak; she had given of herself too many times and found out, always one or two girls too late, that the person she had given herself to hadn't given back. And she had known, going in, that Sara had had feelings for Gil.

Catherine had tried, so very hard, not to be jealous or suspicious, but suddenly Grissom was working more cases with Sara and Sara seemed so relaxed, so happy, so at peace with herself, and try as she might, Catherine found she just couldn't attribute all that to their relationship, the one she and Sara shared. So she watched through the glass walls, counted the seconds Sara stayed late, and waited for the inevitable. It was so hard, watching, waiting, that there were times she couldn't breath, the band of fear so tight across her chest she felt crushed under the weight.

The early, carefree time of their relationship has been short-lived in the face of her suspicion, and their arguments grew epic as Sara demanded trust and Catherine tried, but could not give it. Catherine remembers Sara, standing in the middle of her apartment, frustrated, on the verge of tears, saying, _I just want to be with you, Catherine. It doesn't have to be this hard._ And she hadn't wanted it to be hard, and that night, when Sara held her as she cried, the warmth of her lover's embrace gave her a glimpse of what it might be like to be easy and free.

And things had gotten better until that last, horrible night, when Sara told her that she had turned down an invitation to dinner with Grissom. Catherine shivers, downing the last of the amber liquid in her glass as she remembers all of her fears boiling up, because the man Sara had always wanted now wanted her back. Catherine had cried that night too, wanting those strong arms and whispered affirmations to drive away the fear, but instead the words Sara whispered ended their relationship. _I can't do it I can't keep having the same argument with you, Catherine, over and over. I just can't do it_. And then Sara walked out of her house, her life, and less than a week, later accepted that dinner date with Grissom. Catherine remembers clutching those couples' therapy brochures in her hands, the pictures of happy couples slowly shredding as she watched Grissom escorting Sara to his car. That night, Catherine had ended up in this very spot, on her couch, highball in hand. _No more_ she tells herself as the highball lands on the coaster with a muted thump and Catherine is out the door before she can second-guess her decision.

**Part 3**

As she drives up, Catherine is relieved to see Sara's car sitting in its usual place in the carport, but after half an hour pounding on the brunette's door, she is forced to realize that Sara is out, and probably out at a bar. Catherine sighs; she know s Sara doesn't have a drinking problem, but she also knows that Sara often dulls the pain of the 'me' problem with alcohol, and it looked to be one of those nights, so she starts down the well-lit street toward the local pub and finds her ex sitting there at the bar.

"Sara," she says softly, knowing she won't be heard over the din of the bar, knowing Sara will hear her anyway.

The brunette keeps her back to the blonde, with much the same defeated, non-engaged posture as earlier in the break room. "What are you doing here, Catherine?"

"I want to know what you wanted to tell me." _I need to know, I need to know if it will make a difference._

"I told you, it…"

"Doesn't matter, yes, I know what you told me." Catherine swallows past the lump in her throat as she feels it close up, threatening to bury her words. "It matters," she tells the brunette, her urgency breaking through her quiet tones. "It matters to me."

Sara hasn't looked up yet, and gives no indication that she is going to, but she continues the conversation anyway. "Why?'

Catherine knows that a loud, smoky bar is the last place to be having this conversation, but she also knows that this is it, her last shot; she knows she'll never have the opportunity nor the courage again, so she speaks. "Because… you matter to me." She wishes she had a beer in her hand, to fidget with, to sip while she searches for words, to shut her the hell up. "Because, after everything, I care. I care what you think, what you feel." She takes a deep breath. "I care that you hurt, that I hurt you." She's near tears now, hating to admit how deeply this woman can affect her, hating that she can't let go even though Sara apparently has. "Even after everything," she admits, "I don't want to hurt you." She ducks her head and stares at the bar, seeing her eyes unnaturally bright with unshed tears in the mirror behind the bottles.

"Why not?" Sara's question is noncommittal, even cold, and it breaks Catherine's heart all over again. "It's what we're good at."

"I don't want to be good at it. Sometimes, I just can't help it, because I hurt…" Her throat does close off now, for a moment; she's not sure she can talk about this now, whether she'll ever be able to articulate her pain. "I'm trying, Sara, I'm trying so hard to… be happy for you. I want you to be happy, I really do. It just kills me to know that you are happy with him." She pauses in her outburst, tries to get her voice under control; she doesn't want to break down, not here, not now, but she's losing the fight and she has to get out of there. "You're right, I shouldn't have come," she says as she gathers her purse, her jacket, and starts to back toward the door.

"I was going to apologize." The quiet words stop her mid-flight. "I understand why you did what you did and I could have said something." A pause. "I don't condone what you did. You should have fought for us; after all these years of working with you, watching your back, we deserved that." Another pause. "But sometimes you have to pick your battles, and you were trying to solve the case. I understand that."

Sara sits silently and Catherine waits her out, standing between the bar and door: poised in flight to go yet unable to go, wanting more than anything to move closer to Sara, but afraid. As the minutes pass, Catherine begins to doubt that there will be any more said, so Sara's admission surprises her.

"And I'm not." Sara's head drops down onto her hand, as if those three words somehow took all of her strength.

"Not what?"

"Not happy. You asked how the thing with Grissom is working out for me. It isn't."

That's all the impetus Catherine needs to regain her seat, to sit and watch as Sara bites her lip and furrows her brow. "I lied. To you. When I left." The words come so slowly, in dribs and drabs, and Catherine has to rein in her impatience. "I didn't leave you because I loved Grissom; I left you because I didn't."

Another long pause gives Catherine a few moments to try to puzzle through what Sara is trying to tell her. "You get jealous when you are fearful in a relationship, you monitor and watch and wait for some sign to confirm your fears, because you can't believe it could really be that good, that easy." Sara exhales, her voice so soft now that Catherine has to lean forward to hear. "My fear reaction is different, but no less destructive."

Catherine tries to hold on to the hurt and anger she had felt when Sara had left, the sleepless days, the pain on seeing Grissom bring her a veggie burger, but somewhere, deep within, she feels the stirring of hope. "What are you saying?" she asks quietly, to make sure she understands. There is no room for misinterpretation in this.

"I'm saying I ran. This thing, between us, was so big and so scary, and your jealousy gave me an excuse. And I ran. I… it's easier, to be in a relationship, if I don't… care. If I care, I have no defenses." She exhales, a long shaky sigh. "I didn't have any defenses against you. And it scared me."

"So what does this mean for us?" Catherine is afraid to push her, but she has to ask. She has to know.

"I don't know," Sara tells her, her voice aching with weariness, "I've been sitting here drinking and it's been an incredibly long day and now is not the time to make any earth-shattering decisions but… he's a thousand miles away and you are right here, but you're the one I miss."


End file.
